In her first in-depth interview since the Batgirl film was jarringly cancelled by the newly-formed Warner Bros. Discovery, Leslie Grace is pushing back on the claim that Batgirl was “not releasable.” It had been widely reported that the studio saw a tax write-off to canning the film as WBD pivoted away from the prior regime’s aggressive spending on HBO Max content. However, when new DC Studios chief James Gunn and Peter Safran unveiled their DC Universe plans, Safran said some choice words about the quality of Batgirl.
“I saw the movie, there were a lot of incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera on that film. But that film was not releasable,” Safran previously said. “It happens sometimes. That film was not releasable.”
Grace rejects that claim. While talking to Variety, she opened up about how much of Batgirl she was able to watch before WBD pulled the plug on the film, which also featured Michael Keaton reprising his iconic Batman role:
I got to see the film as far as it got to; the film wasn’t complete by the time that it was tested. There were a bunch of scenes that weren’t even in there. They were at the beginning of the editing process, and they were cut off because of everything going on at the company. But the film that I got to see — the scenes that were there — was incredible. There was definitely potential for a good film, in my opinion.
Brendan Fraser, who played the Batman villain Firefly in the film, was also reached for comment to Variety, and once again, he did not hold back his thoughts.
“That was a gut punch. But then we learned that it was in the interest of writing down some debt? That part really stung,” Fraser said before praising Grace’s performance. “What I find most lamentable is that now a whole generation of little girls are going to have to wait longer to see a Batgirl and say, ‘Hey, she looks like me.’ That makes me sad. I know how good she was. And I know what this would mean to so many people.”
(Via Variety)